Joel Daniel Phillips

Joel Daniel Phillips is an American artist best known for his realist life-size portraits of San Francisco residents, notably disenfranchised segments of the population. He works primarily with charcoal and graphite. Phillips' drawings depict figures isolated on the page with no anchors to space. Phillips' work has been displayed around the globe and is currently represented by Hashimoto Contemporary in San Francisco, California and Galleri Ramfjord in Oslo, Norway.

Phillips was born July 25, 1989, and grew up in Redmond, Washington. He received a BFA from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA in 2011, and worked as a graphic designer before finding his first fine art representation and becoming a full-time fine artist.

Phillips was the third-place winner of the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever competition in 2016. The winning portrait titled “Eugene #4” was of a gentleman he met on the corner of Sixth and Mission Streets in San Francisco, a location he frequently visits to photograph subjects for his drawings. For Phillips, the focus on fringe populations represents “a visual record of my striving to recognize unknown and unnoticed individuals through the tip of my pencil.”